The topic of the thread is "Why is the Earth accelerating at 9.8 metres per second?" - it's VERY clear (to both FE'ers and RE'ers that the premise of the question is flawed).
So to answer it in any useful way, it's really necessary to point out that:
a) It's not doing that (because: tides, Cavendish, equatorial-vs-poles, mountain-tops, etc).
b) Even if it was, then there would need to be an infinite energy source to power it (because: F=ma, W=Fs and E=W) - which is (at best) implausible.
So either the answer is either "It isn't" or "UA is not a viable hypothesis to explain it"...and that's the thing we need to discuss in order to fully answer the question.
If you're going to ban topic derailment - then it would be intellectually honest to ban a bunch of Tom's derailments...he's the king of derailment...and quite a few of your own.
So if there is a clear policy that all answers that do not DIRECTLY respond to the precise question are inappropriate - then so be it - but I'd hope you'd stick by that rule when I point out both your and Tom's infractions of it.
IMHO, that's not the policy I've seen enforced here. For rational debate to proceed, a certain measure of topic-wandering is inevitable and not entirely undesirable.